US treasury chief vows to push Pakistan debt relief

ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill today praised Pakistan’s commitment to curbing the flow of terror funds and pledged his support in pushing for relief for the heavily indebted country.

Pakistan was "doing a great job" in helping to block funds for illegal purposes, including those used to support terror groups, O’Neill told a news conference after meeting Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz and other officials.

The Treasury chief, whose department heads the US drive to identify and intercept money used by terror groups like the Al Qaeda network, said there was a unified global drive to block funds for financing terror.

But he declined reporters’ questions whether Pakistan’s commitment to cooperate on intercepting such funds was likely to affect its economic prospects.

"Bad people who are breaking the law and doing evil things are evil for whatever reason and I am confident...That people have a relentless attitude and a thoroughness in what they are doing that didn’t exist two years ago and I think it’s moving forward quite well," O’Neill said, referring to Pakistan’s efforts to fight the flows.

The United States has more than 240 individuals, businesses and groups on a list of organisations suspected of helping move funds for terror groups. About 113 million dollars in assets of these groups have been frozen.

Many of the groups on the US list are based in Pakistan, making US interest in Pakistani cooperation a top priority. Asked if Pakistan’s cooperation on the issue might affect a US commitment to grant it additional debt relief of about one billion dollars, made by President George W Bush to President Pervez Musharraf, O’Neill said the two issues were not related.

"President Bush has indicated that he would seek action by congress in order to provide debt relief and there are no ‘ifs and ans’ and conditions," the US treasury chief said. "The President made a commitment and he will pursue it."

Pakistan owes external debt of about 36 billion dollars, or nearly 60 percent of its annual economic output. It has been seeking debt relief through international institutions and individually from some countries such as the United States.

Since the terror attacks in Washington and New York in September 2001, which the United States blames on the Al Qaeda network, the US has been working closely with Pakistan to block money flows via the global banking system and informal exchanges.

US officials said Pakistan will become only the second country after the United Arab Emirates to receive US training and technical assistance in identifying and stopping money laundering, sometimes done through trade in commodities.

O’Neill said after a meeting with Pakistani President Musharraf that the two shared a common belief in wanting to promote economic development in Pakistan through increased private sector activity.

At a later meeting with locally- based journalists O’Neill rejected the suggestion that poverty might be a reason for some individuals support actions of terror groups.

"There are no excuses for people showing their frustration by killing," O’Neill said in response to a question.

O’Neill, who visited Afghanistan on Monday, will be in Pakistan for one more day before heading to India for the annual meeting of the group of 20 finance officials in New Delhi later in the week. (AGENCIES)

Blix paves way for inspections as Iraq fears US strike

BAGHDAD, Nov 19: UN disarmament chief Hans Blix forged ahead today with preparations for new weapons searches which official Iraqi newspapers charged would be used as a US-Israeli pretext for war against Baghdad.

Blix was due to hold talks with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and other Iraqi officials, following a first round yesterday that he said made "progress" toward the full-scale resumption of inspections.

"We are continuing the talks. Tonight we will tell you" about the outcome, Blix told reporters before leaving for his headquarters.

The head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), is accompanied by Mohamed Elbaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General.

They arrived yesterday from Cyprus with 24 technical experts to reopen offices their predecessors abandoned four years earlier before US and British forces staged air strikes to punish Baghad for allegedly blocking the disarmament work.

But Iraqi newspapers warned that, despite their effort to cooperate with the UN teams and prove they no longer have weapons of mass destruction programmes, Washington wanted a pretext to go to war.

Ath-Thawra, the mouthpiece of the ruling Baath Party, enounced UN Security Council resolution 1441, which was adopted unanimously on November 8 andwhich iraq reluctantly accepted, clearing the way for the Blix team to arrive here. "The US administration of evil and its zionist ally have chosen this time round to don a blue beret and dress in Security Council garb to wage war on Iraq by (pushing through) a resolution that flouts the international consensus," wrote Ath-Thawra. That "international consensus" is laid down in the UN charter and international law, the paper said.

Baghdad "accepted resolution 1441 so that people of good will and with no ulterior motives can acertain the truth of Iraq’s contention that it ...Did not produce weapons of mass destruction" in the four years since experts of the now-defunct UN Special Commission pulled out of the country, Ath-Thawra said.

Al-Iraq, another official daily, said Blix arrived at a time when the vision of many people had been blurred because of the fuss kicked up by Washington over Iraq’s alleged possession of a prohibited arsenal.

The "aggressive" US administration wants to wage war on Iraq under the pretext that its arms programs pose a "threat" to world security "while bankrolling the zionist entity to the tune of billions of dollars" despite Israel’s possession of mass destruction weapons, it said.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied claims by inter national experts it has produced up to 200 nuclear warheads.

Iraqi newspapers also expressed fears that Washington was seeking the loosest interpretation of resolution 1441 as a pretext to wage war when they prominently reported an Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement.

The ministry was responding to US statements that washington had the option of declaring Iraq in "material breach" of the resolution if it fired at US warplanes enforcing air exclusion zones in the North and South of the country. (AFP)

Bush takes Iraq, terrorism campaign to NATO summit

WASHINGTON, Nov 19: US President George W Bush left today for a NATO summit in Prague, Czech Republic, to line up European support for a looming confrontation with Iraq and ready the alliance for a new mission combating terrorism.

Hand in hand with first lady Laura Bush, the President left the White House shortly after sunrise on a five-day trip that will take them to four countries.

Seven Eastern European nations will be invited to join the 19-member security alliance at the summit in the Czech capital. Bush said the inclusion of countries that threw off the yoke of totalitarianism should invigorate NATO.

Alliance leaders were also expected to give the green light to a strike force for high-intensity warfare and to revamping NATO’s increasingly obsolete military command structure.

Before leaving for the summit, Bush declared that NATO’s new mission would be the war against terrorism, launched by the United States after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Despite a successful military campaign in Afghanistan and terrorism-related arrests around the world, US officials say the war is far from over.

As NATO leaders gather in Prague, America and its allies will be on heightened alert for a new round of attacks by Al Qaeda and its elusive leader, Osama bin Laden, who US officials believe was alive as recently as late October.

"They’re plotting an attack, no question about it. That’s why we’ve got to get them," Bush told radio free Europe. But the threat of war with Iraq could overshadow the agenda of reshaping the alliance. Bush said he would discuss with the allies his pledge that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein disarm peaceably on his own or by military force.

Many Europeans are uneasy about a possible war with Iraq. Opinions in NATO run from Britain’s solid support for the US position to Germany’s steadfast opposition, which has damaged German-American diplomatic relations.

White House officials sought to play down any lingering resentment, but Bush had no separate meeting planned with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose re-election campaign centered against the US administration’s policy toward Iraq.

Bush will meet with Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, French President Jacques Chirac and NATO Secretary-General George Robertson.

Bush indicated he would be making no request for NATO military assistance against Iraq. If military action is needed, Bush said he would consult again with NATO members "and everybody will be able to make the decision that they’re comfortable with."

The central purpose of the summit is to formally invite into NATO Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the three Baltic nations along the Russian border, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

It will be the first expansion of the NATO alliance since 1999, when the number of NATO allies rose to 19 with the addition of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

After the summit, Bush travels to St. Petersburg, Russia, to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bush said he would make it clear to the Russians they have "nothing to fear from NATO expansion."

Bush will also visit Romania and Lithuania before returning to Washington on Saturday. (AGENCIES)

PML-Q nominee elected as Pak Parliament Speaker

ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: Brightening pro-Musharraf PML-Q’s chance of forming a Government in Pakistan, its candidate Chaudhary Amir Hussain was today elected as speaker of the new Parliament amidst allegations of rigging and coercion.

Pro-tem speaker of the National Assembly, Ilahi Bux Sumroo, announced Hussain’s election as speaker after five hours of wrangling between pro and anti-Musharraf parties over the procedures followed in the election held through secret ballot.

Hussain, a former minister who is considered loyal to President Pervez Musharraf, received 167 out of 327 votes, followed by Islamic parties’ alliance MMA candidate Liaqat Baluch who got 80 votes while former Premier Benazir Bhutto’s PPP party’s nominee Atizaz Asan secured 71 votes in the 342-member house.

Four votes were declared invalid while five members abstained. Six members who won from two constituencies have vacated one of their seats.

Dispute arose over the authenticity of some ballot papers cast during the election and members from PPP and MMA demanded re-election and formation of a house committee to investigate their allegations.

The PPP and MMA alleged that unauthorised ballot papers marked in the lobby have been cast and they found empty ballot papers during the counting.

Disregarding the objection, Sumroo said he has followed fair and transparent procedures, and declared that the election was valid.

Amid protest, he sworn in Hussain as the new speaker and handed over the charge.

Both PPP and MMA staged a walkout protesting irregularities in the Speaker’s election.

Later lodging a strong protest, MMA’s Prime Ministerial candidate Maulana Fazlur Rahman told the house that they walked out to bring to the notice of the country the irregularities in the election process, which was televised live.

An election to such a key seat of democracy should not be conducted under such a controversy, he said.

However both Baluch and Asan congratulated Hussain on his election and asked him to abide by the 1973 Constitution without containing the amendments brought in by Musharraf.

MMA and PPP leaders said they were sworn in as members of National Assembly and were not bound by Musharraf’s amendments.

One member of PML-Q, who turned up late, was allowed to vote even after the closure of the polling.

PML-Q, which has managed extra 50 votes by splitting PPP and mopping up votes from smaller parties, claims support of 180 members, which is significant in view of the election of Prime Minister on Thursday.

Muttahida Quami Movement, which has 17 members, has decided to support PML-Q amid allegations of pressure from the Government. Another PML-Q ally, the national alliance, with 16 members, voted for Hussain along with other independent members.

After assuming the Speaker’s chair, Hussain, who was Law Minister in the Nawaz Sharif Government, made arrangements for the election of Deputy Speaker. (PTI)

Powell revives idea of US aiding North Korea

WASHINGTON, Nov 19: In a slight shift in emphasis, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the United States was willing to help North Korea if it ended its nuclear weapons and other "destabilizing" programs.

The comment reaffirmed Washington’s readiness to revive an approach of providing political and economic assistance to Pyongyang that officials have largely played down since the North Korean nuclear weapons program came to light last month.

According to US officials, North Korea admitted it had a secret nuclear weapons program — in violation of the 1994 agreed framework under which it agreed to halt its nuclear efforts — during talks with US officials in early October.

Further alarming its neighbors, the official Pyougyang radio appeared to confirm over the weekend that North Korea possessed nuclear weapons, although North Korea retracted the report yesterday.

The United States has sought a diplomatic solution to the crisis, demanding that North Korea end its uranium enrichment program. Unlike its stance toward Iraq, it has not threatened North Korea with war if it fails to give up the program.

Powell yesterday said the United States wanted to help the reclusive, stalinist state, which suffers from chronic shortages of food and fuel, but could not do so until it ended the nuclear and other, unspecified programs. "We have responded, I think, in a very careful, patient, deliberate way ... Making it clear to North Korea that "we can help you with the problems you’re now having, but it has to begin with the end of any such nuclear weapons program,"’ Powell told a group of high school newspaper editors.

"We would like to help them if they would allow themselves to be helped and it begins with ending this program and some other programs they have that we believe are destabilizing," he said during a question and answer session with the students.

In October, the United States said Washington had been prepared to offer Pyongyang economic and political assistance if North Korea were to change its behavior on issues, including weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missile development and exports, support for terrorism, threats to its neighbors and the "deplorable" treatment of its own people.

"Now that North Korea’s covert nuclear weapons program has come to light, we are unable to pursue this approach," US President George W Bush said in a written statement on Friday in which he again demanded that Pyongyang "completely and visibly eliminate its nuclear weapons program."

Bush issued the statement after diplomats from the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Japan decided to allow a shipment of fuel oil to North Korea now underway, but cut off further shipments because of the nuclear arms program.

Under the agreed framework, Washington pledged to fund the shipment of 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil to North Korea annually and help it build two "light water" nuclear power reactors less susceptible to being used to develop nuclear weapons.

A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Washington had never ruled out the possibility of reviving the approach of aiding North Korea, but said it wanted to see action from Pyongyang on the issues, not promises.

"Promises are not enough. If we saw concrete action, the abandonment of this program (and other programs) it’s possible this approach could be revived," said the official. "We’ve gone down the promises road before." (AGENCIES)

Israel’s Labour Party votes for new leader

JERUSALEM, Nov 19: Israel’s labour party held a ballot of its members today to pick a new leader, with Dovish retired General Amram Mitzna looking set to take command and put forward new options for peace with the Palestinians.

But with Israeli fears of Palestinian suicide bombings and ambushes running high, Labour’s Hawkish Likud rivals seem likely to retain power in a general election on January 28, leaving the new labour chief as head of the parliamentary opposition.

The labour ballot effectively got campaigning under way in earnest for the general election, called early after labour walked out of a national unity coalition with Likud. Doubt about the outcome is straining Israel’s ailing economy and adding to regional uncertainty with a possible US war on Iraq looming.

The 110,000 members of the centre-left Labour Party have all day until 9 PM (1900 gmt) to vote around the country. Party officials expect preliminary results three hours later. Turnout was about 20 per cent at 1 PM (1100 gmt), Army radio said.

Opinion polls show retired Major-General Amram Mitzna easily unseating present leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, another former general, who pulled labour out of right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s coalition last month in a row over the budget.

"We vote today for the fate of the country," Ben-Eliezer told Israel radio. "We must lead the nation to a better future and give the public a real alternative."

Mitzna, the Mayor of Haifa, criticises Ben-Eliezer for what he saw as harshness in handling the Palestinian uprising during Ben-Eliezer’s time as Defence Minister in Sharon’s coalition.

"I have political and security views that are very clear and very different from the way of the present Government and I see the social-economic issue as the key to the development of Israeli society," Mitzna told channel two television.

The Haifa Mayor was surrounded by supporters as he toured party polling stations on Tuesday. "The people are waiting for a different leadership," read blue-and-white placards. Former Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is not seeking to lead the Labour Party again. Whoever does will face Sharon or his Likud rival Benjamin Netanyahu in the bid to be Prime Minister.

Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a top aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said the Palestinian leadership was prepared to negotiate peace with the new leader, provided he agreed to end "occupation of our lands" within a year.

"If the Labour Party adopts a new programme of withdrawal, as they did in southern Lebanon, we will promptly carry out contacts with it," Abdel-Rahman said.

Mitzna favours resuming negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories to make way for a peace settlement between two sovereign states.

He has said that even if Arafat — whom many in Israel hold responsible for bloodshed that has claimed 1,665 Palestinian and 640 Israeli lives — fails as a peace partner, he would unilaterally evacuate from much of the territory.

The latest Israeli victim of violence that erupted in September 2000 after talks on Palestinian statehood stalled was an Israeli woman from a Jewish settlement, shot dead on Monday as she drove past the West Bank city of Ramallah.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the militant groups that have frequently targeted settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians want for a state.

The international community regards Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal. Israel disputes that.

Today, Israel arrested 16 Palestinians in the West Bank, three from Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for a major shooting in Hebron on Friday, and a Palestinian from Al-Khader who the Army said had planned suicide attacks. (AGENCIES)

Iraq may have smallpox biological weapon,
says US scientist

LAS VEGAS, Nov 19: Iraq may have developed smallpox as a biological weapon, leaving the United States with a tricky decision about whether to vaccinate part of its population against the threat, an American scientist has told a conference on biosecurity.

"I’m assuming that Iraq has the smallpox virus. It’s certainly the working hypothesis," Ronald Atlas, President of the American Society for Microbiology told the conference organized by Harvard University and the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences yesterday, who said he was expressing a wide consensus.

The conference brought together emergency responders, police, military personnel, scientists, public health officials and local Government leaders to discuss the threat posed by "biological terrorism" and ways to combat it.

The four-day meeting began as an advance team of international weapons inspectors returned to iraq after a four-year absence to begin enforcing a United Nations resolution mandating that Baghdad give up all its suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a keynote speaker at the conference, said bioterrorism had become the most serious single threat facing western nations.

He said Israel took the possibility of Iraq launching a smallpox attack so seriously that it had already begun vaccinating 10,000 emergency personnel who would be the first to respond to such an attack. Israel has drawn up plans and stockpiled drugs to vaccinate the entire population within days should an attack occur. But Kenneth Shine, Director of the Rand Center for Domestic and International Health Security, said the United States was lagging far behind in its plans to meet a smallpox threat.

"We should start vaccinating first responders in small groups and carefully monitor secondary infections. We desperately need a national vaccination policy," he said.

The Bush administration is expected to announce a policy on smallpox vaccination shortly. Existing models predict that up to 1,400 Americans sould die from the effects of the vaccination or by catching the disease from others who were vaccinated if the entire population was immunized. However, scientists at the conference said they thought that figure was based on outdated information and far too low.

Given the number of Americans with depressed immune systems due to diseases like HIV or because they were undergoing cancer therapy, they said many more could be expected to die.

Robert Crone, Chairman of the Conference and President of Harvard Medical International, a non-profit subsidiary of the university, said there were large gaps in US defenses against biological weapons.

"While Government is doing an admirable job, I’m not sure we are fully ready to deal with large-scale chemical or biological attack today," he said.

Atlas said he feared iraq might also have experimented with genetically engineering smallpox to provide an even more deadly agent that could not be killed by the existing vaccine.

In its letter last week to the United Nations accepting the return of weapons inspectors to its soil after a four-year absence, Iraq said it "has not developed weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, as claimed by evil people."

Atlas cited one recent experiment in Australia aimed at controlling the mouse population. Researchers inserted a gene called Interleuken-4 into the mousepox virus, a relative of smallpox that is harmless to humans. Instead of making mice infertile, the engineered virus became far more deadly than the natural strain, killing mice that had been vaccinated against mousepox.

"The fear is that if you put interleuken-4 into human smallpox, you would create a virus that circumvents the vaccine," he said.

Iraq is known to have experimented with camel pox in the 1980s, leading some western experts to suspect it was trying to adapt yet another variant of the disease for use against humans.

Atlas said UN inspectors needed to urgently investigate whether Iraq had done any research with Interleuken-4. He said US scientists at a University in Louisiana were expected to gain approval soon for an experiment to see if the gene worked with monkey pox in the same way as it did with mousepox.

"There is no question that biotechnology can contribute to the threat of bioterrorism," he said. (AGENCIES)

Pak surgeon quizzed on helping Al-Qaeda
make chemical weapons

LAHORE, Nov 19: A top Pakistani surgeon who was detained for a month over suspected links to Al-Qaeda said today that US FBI and CIA agents quizzed him on allegations he provided information to the terror network on manufacturing chemical weapons including anthrax.

"I was in the custody of Pakistani authorities but I was interrogated by americans," Doctor Amir Aziz told AFP in an interview tonight, some 16 hours after he was released and delivered to his home in Lahore in Pakistan’s East.

Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency investigators asked the surgeon about his connection to Al-Qaeda and their hardline Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, he said.

"They asked me whether I was involved in providing them with information on chemical weapons and anthrax," Aziz said.

Aziz had been picked up by two FBI agents and five local intellegence officials after leaving his hospital in Lahore on October 21.

The Government consistently refused to reveal where he was being held or for what reasons.

Intelligence officials had said privately that Aziz was suspected of treating Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden after September 11 last year, and may have financed Al-Qaeda militants.

Aziz was brought back to his home by Pakistani intelligence officials before dawn today, hours ahead of a second deadline for the Government to produce him in court. (AFP)

Russia arrest policy alienates Chechens: UN official

MOSCOW, Nov 19: Russian military sweeps of Caucasus refugee camps and mass arrests of young men are driving ill-educated Chechen youths into the arms of separatist rebels, a UN humanitarian official said today.

"We have a population which is increasingly alienated and they understandably ask how their rights as citizens are being protected," Rosemary McCreery, UN humanitarian coordinator and head of the Russian UNICEF Children’s Fund, told Reuters.

"The whole situation is a time-bomb."

Some Russian officials say refugee camps in Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia are hotbeds of recruitment for extremist Islamic organisations, which they link to Chechen separatists.

Russian military tactics, which have included sealing off whole areas and arresting young men en masse, have been criticised by human rights groups, which also say hundreds of Chechens have disappeared without trace after such operations.

"The ones most at risk (of radicalisation) are the young men, the ones with little education, the ones who are swept up in the mopping-up operations, the ones who disappear," she said, speaking after a news conference.

According to UN figures there are 250,000 displaced people in Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia, driven out by a decade of war between federal troops and separatists.

Federal forces have stepped up security in the region since separatists seized a Moscow theatre last month, and held more than 700 hostages for three days. At least 128 hostages were killed along with the 41 rebels when special forces stormed the building to end the siege.

Although Russian forces lose men on an almost daily basis, Moscow says the military phase of the Chechen operation is almost over and hopes to close the tent camps in Ingushetia, which house 20-25,000, by the end of this year.

Some 30-40,000 refugees have returned to Chechnya in the last 12 months, although some rights groups have said they were forced into going back.

McCreery said refugees should only return of their own free will, and said the UN was trying to persuade the Russian Government to change its plan to return the refugees.

"It is unlikely...That all the people will wish to return by the end of the year to Chechnya," she said. "The population that has returned...Is living in conditions that are grossly inadequate."

Bhim Udas, Country Director for the World Food Programme, said he had been told the Russian state had stopped its food distribution system in the camps, and that he was worried there would now be food shortages.

"The situation in the middle of winter isn’t going to be very good. Even the world food programme won’t have enough food stocks to distribute from the beginning of 2003," he said.

The UN was launching an appeal for 33.7 million dollars in donations to pay for its programmes in Chechnya and neighbouring republics, the bulk of which would be spent on food. (AGENCIES)

Armed men seize trawler off Russia’s pacific coast

VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA, Nov 19: Armed men have seized a Russian trawler off the country’s pacific coast, rescue services told Reuters today.

There was no information on the identity of those who seized the ship, identified as the Tulun, in the sea of Japan or whether they had issued any demands.

"We have received information from the border guards that a vessel has been seized by armed people," a duty officer at the Transport Ministry’s rescue service said by telephone.

A spokesman for the pacific region border guards said he had no information on the incident.

Interfax news agency said Russian border guards had been advised of the incident by the South Korean Coast Guard. It said the vessel, with a crew of 20, had been seized in neutral waters 400 nautical miles off Russia’s main pacific port of Vladivostok.

Interfax said the 1,200-tonne Tulun, 54 metres in length, was registered in the port of Kholmsk, on Russia’s pacific island of Sakhalin.

Fish poaching is a common practice in the region, with authorities in Russia, Japan and South Korea marshalling considerable resources to combat the practice.

A senior border guard responsible for battling poaching was killed in a firebomb attack on his apartment earlier this year. (AGENCIES)

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